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Column 2 Includables

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2019-03-12: Social Media Postees

Syria Ready for War to Regain Oil-Rich Golan Heights?
Kurt Nimmo | globalresearch.ca | 2019-03-12
In 1981 when Israel officially annexed Syria's Golan Heights after occupying it following the Six Day War, the United States under President Ronald Reagan voted unanimously with the UN Security Council to condemn the Israeli theft of around 1,800 square …globalresearch.ca/syria-war-regain-oil-r…

Whose Interests Are Served by the US Occupation of East Syria: America's or Israel's?
Mike Whitney | globalresearch.ca | 2019-03-12
What is Israel's stake in east Syria? Has Israel influenced Washington's decision to maintain a long-term military presence in Syria? How does Israel benefit from the splintering of Syria into smaller statelets and from undermining the power of the central …globalresearch.ca/us-occupation-east-syr…

UN report on Syria shows scale of humanitarian tragedy
unitedEditor | uwidata.com | 2019-03-12
Reading about the thousands of innocent people dying as a result of aerial bombardments, and the tens of thousands of women and children being forced to fight for life in inhuman conditions in refugee camps, one feels an urged to share the information across social media in order to shed light on the tragic situation. …uwidata.com/2634-un-report-on-syria-show…

How US Sanctions are Hurting Iran: A Firsthand Report
Medea Benjamin | counterpunch.org | 2019-03-12
On a recent delegation to Iran, we experienced first-hand the legendary Iranian hospitality. Iranians are particularly thrilled to meet Americans, but as we discovered, our government's policies are hurting the very people who want to be our friends. As our 28-person delegation traveled through the country wearing messages on our jackets proclaiming "Peace with Iran"counterpunch.org/2019/03/12/how-us-sanct…

Trump's Dystopian Budget Proposal. Slashing Social Programs. More Money for War
Stephen Lendman | globalresearch.ca | 2019-03-12
Trump's dead on arrival budget proposal to Congress is all about funding greater militarism and belligerence, along with serving corporate interests and high-net worth households — while gutting vital social programs. | It's a proposal only Wall Street, the military, industrial, …globalresearch.ca/trumps-dystopian-budge…

Joe Biden Isn't Coming to the Rescue
Norman Solomon | truthdig.com | 2019-03-12
When the New York Times front-paged its latest anti-left polemic masquerading as a news article, the March 9 piece declared: "Should former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. enter the race, as his top advisers vow he soon will, he would have the best immediate shot at the moderate mantle." | On the verge of relaunching, Joe Biden is poised to come to the rescue of the corporate political establishment–at a time when, in the words of the Times, "the sharp left turn in the Democratic Party and the rise of progressive presidential candidates are unnerving moderate Democrats." After 36 years in the Senate and…truthdig.com/articles/joe-biden-isnt-com…

Members of Congress Take Bold Step Towards Ending Discriminatory Bans on Abortion Coverage
ACLU | aclu.org | 2019-03-12
A new bill would end the Hyde Amendment and other related bans on insurance coverage of abortion. | Members of Congress on Tuesday took a bold step toward making the right to abortion a reality for everyone. The EACH Woman Act was reintroduced in the House — and introduced in the Senate for the first time ever. | This trailblazing legislation would end the Hyde Amendment and related bans on insurance coverage of abortion, which for over four decades have pushed…aclu.org/blog/reproductive-freedom/abort…

We Will See Trump's Tax Returns: David Cay Johnston Predicts Probes Will Uncover President's Secrets
Democracy Now! | democracynow.org | 2019-03-12
The New York Times is reporting New York Attorney General Letitia James issued subpoenas late Monday to Deutsche Bank and Investors Bank for records related to the Trump Organization. This comes just weeks after Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen testified before Congress that Trump had inflated his assets in financial statements. New York state regulators subpoenaed the Trump Organization's insurance broker, Aon, after Cohen's testimony. The House Judiciary Committee also recently requested documents from 81 people and groups in Trump's inner circle. We speak with David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prize-winning inve…www.democracynow.org/2019/3/12/we_will_s…

NAACP-Opposed judicial nominee coming up this week
Adam Lee | naacp.org | 2019-03-12
President Trump has nominated Ms. Neomi Rao to serve as a judge on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Ms. Rao has an extraordinarily long record of hostility to the rights of people of color and other historically marginalized people. The NAACP is strongly opposed to this nomination, which may come before the full Senate for …naacp.org/latest/naacp-opposed-judicial-…

'Fight On': Anti-socialist hysteria motivates conservative propaganda flick
Michael Berkowitz | peoplesworld.org | 2019-03-12
Donald Trump has a movie he'd like you to see. It's called Fight On and is about the specter haunting America…socialism. Although too late for the Academy Awards, the right-wing Republicans unveiled this film hoping it will be a big winner for them in the coming national elections. Fight On was the centerpiece of the …peoplesworld.org/article/fight-on-anti-s…

Democrats Choose Milwaukee for Convention, Citing Party Values
STAFF | truthdig.com | 2019-03-12
MILWAUKEE–Milwaukee will host the 2020 Democratic National Convention, party leaders announced Monday, highlighting the battleground state of Wisconsin that helped elect President Donald Trump and now will launch an opponent who could oust him. | Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez chose Milwaukee over Houston and Miami after deliberations lingered longer than party leaders or officials from the three finalist cities had expected. | "Where you hold our convention is a very strong statement of your values and who and what we are f…truthdig.com/articles/democrats-choose-m…

Whistleblower Chelsea Manning Stands Up for Press Freedom, Gets Jailed by US Gov't
Jimmysllama | mintpressnews.com | 2019-03-12
President Donald Trump's 2010 statement that the WikiLeaks' staff should be executed and Hillary Clinton's suggestion to drone Assange, are reflective of a deeply disturbing trend to terrorize the press.mintpressnews.com/whistleblower-chelsea-…

Socialist Equality Party files lawsuit against German secret service
WSWS | wsws.org | 2019-03-12
The SGP calls on all individuals, organizations, and institutions that defend democratic rights to support the suit against the secret service's attacks.www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/03/12/sgpk…

US Airstrikes Kill at Least 50, Mostly Civilians, in Syria
Jason Ditz | theantimedia.com | 2019-03-12
(ANTIWAR.COM) — Amid talk of a never-ending exodus of civilians from underground in the Syrian village of Baghouz, the Kurdish SDF is waiting on a final push into the last ISIS-held village. The US, however, is not so patient. On Monday, US warplanes attacked Baghouz, killing at least 50 people. Details on what the intended target was is unclear, but …

Freedom Caucus Chair Mark Meadows Wants to Eliminate Super PACs
Akela Lacy | theintercept.com | 2019-03-12
Mark Meadows, the chair of the conservative Freedom Caucus, wants to end Super PACs. | Meadows voted against House Democrats' sweeping ethics and reform bill, which passed the chamber Friday morning on a party-line vote. But there were parts of it he agreed with, the North Carolina Republican told The Intercept. | One thing he supported, Meadows said, was the effort to reform election finance. He said that he'd tried, and failed, to add an amendment that would have eliminated Super PACs, or political action committees. However, H.R.1, a…theintercept.com/2019/03/12/hr1-bill-sup…

Aiming to quash strikes, US teacher union launches campaign to prop up Democrats
WSWS | wsws.org | 2019-03-12
Amid increasing strikes and struggles in defense of public education across the US and the world, the teachers' unions are launching a new initiative to stifle the class struggle and corral teachers behind the capitalist political parties.www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/03/12/aimi…

Facebook briefly takes down Elizabeth Warren's ads on breaking up Facebook
RT | rt.com | 2019-03-12
Democratic presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren might have felt vindicated in her crusade against the monopoly of tech giants like Facebook and Google, after the former took down her ads calling for their dismemberment. | …rt.com/usa/453575-warren-facebook-ads-re…

Women Must Be Central to Negotiating the US-Korea Peace Process
Shared by Merula Furtado | truthout.org | 2019-03-12
When the meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean Chairman Kim Jong Un ended abruptly in Hanoi two weeks ago, my heart sank. As a Korean-American, I have been working for nearly two decades to end the Korean War, which has kept Koreans living under the constant threat of war and devastated three generations of Korean families. I had traveled to Hanoi with a delegation of women peacebuilders to celebrate what many Korea experts anticipated — that the two leaders would declare an end to the Korean War. | Instead, talks collapsed and now the Trump administration has returned to its rheto…truthout.org/articles/women-must-be-cent…

Fox News Condemns Host's Comments About Ilhan Omar
Middle East Eye | theantimedia.com | 2019-03-12
Host Jeannine Pirro said Omar may not support the US Constitution because she wears a hijab. (MEE) — Fox News has condemned recent comments by host Jeannine Pirro about US Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, which prompted accusations of racism and Islamophobia, as well as calls for Pirro to resign, over the weekend. Pirro, host of the Fox News show …

House Republicans Use "Lesbian Radical Feminist" to Advance Anti-Trans Rhetoric
Shared by Samantha Borek | truthout.org | 2019-03-12
A baffling sentence opened the Thursday testimony of Julia Beck, an anti-trans conservative speaking at the U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security on the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. | "I am a lesbian radical feminist," said Beck, who was removed from the Baltimore City LGBTQ Commission Committe…truthout.org/articles/house-republicans-…

Trump's simple trick to getting budget past Democrats? Label everything 'confronting Russia'
RT | rt.com | 2019-03-12
US President Donald Trump may have found a way to get Democrats in the House to approve all of the State Department funding in his proposed $4.7 trillion budget for 2020: by labeling all sorts of things as "countering Russia." | …rt.com/usa/453571-state-department-budge…

States Begin to Crack Down on Broker Abuse as the SEC Dithers
Susan Antilla | theintercept.com | 2019-03-12
Less than two weeks after a new Democratic majority took office in the New York state Senate, legislators introduced the Investment Transparency Act, a bill seeking to protect ordinary investors from aggressive salespeople in the financial industry. The legislation, if it passes, would require brokers to tell their clients point blank, "I am not a fiduciary. Therefore, I am not required to act in your best interests, and am allowed to recommend investments that may earn higher fees for me or my firm, even if those investments may not have the bes…theintercept.com/2019/03/12/sec-broker-r…

Trump Budget Would Cut Spending for Nearly Every Agency Except Pentagon
Shared by Merula Furtado | truthout.org | 2019-03-12
The budget request President Trump released on Monday represents a conservative vision taken to the extreme. It would shoot military spending skyward while dismantling domestic programs piece by piece, with few exceptions. | The budget peels back many of the promises the president made either on the campaign trail or in tweets. For instance, the president has stated an intention to pull back from military interventions in Syria, Afghanistan and elsewhere — but his budget insists on an even bigger military budget. And the cash flow to the Pentagon, combined with ongoing tax cuts for the rich, puts the lie…truthout.org/articles/trump-budget-would…

Islamic State Last Days in Eastern Syria
teleSUR | telesurenglish.net | 2019-03-11
The Syrian Democratic Forces (FDS) launched an attack on the last enclave of the Islamic State in Eastern Syria, with the help of the coalition forces. | On Sunday, regular bombardment from coalition warplanes targeted the enclave at Baghouz in Deir Ez Zor province, a Reuters journalist in Baghouz said. SDF and coalition planes were involved in the assault, and the militant camp is now on fire. | RELATED: | US-led Coalition Bomb Kills 50 Syrian Women, Children | The SDF announced earlier…telesurenglish.net/news/Islamic-State-La…

Crisis in Venezuela, India-Pakistan war, Syria
unitedEditor | uwidata.com | 2019-03-11
Venezuela In the center of the capital of Venezuela, a march of supporters of President Nicolas Maduro took place alongside protests by supporters of self-proclaimed president Juan Guaido who crossed the border back into the country on Monday. The republic has been experiencing periodic blackouts due to the failure of the automatic control system at …uwidata.com/2626-crisis-in-venezuela-ind…

Is the Trump Administration Reckless Enough to Turn the Cold War With Iran Into a Hot One?
Bob Dreyfuss | mintpressnews.com | 2019-03-11
TomDispatch's Bob Dreyfuss asks: could military actions designed to be limited — say, a heightening of the Israeli bombing of Iranian forces inside Syria, or possible U.S. cross-border attacks from Iraq, or a clash between American and Iranian naval ships in the Persian Gulf — trigger a wider war?mintpressnews.com/trump-administration-r…

Joe Biden on the Relaunch Pad
Consortiumnews | consortiumnews.com | 2019-03-11
Whether Biden can win the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination will largely depend on how little voters know about his actual record, writes Norman Solomon. Biden is No Friend of the Working Class; Solidly Backed Invasion of Iraq in 2003 By… Read more ?…consortiumnews.com/2019/03/11/joe-biden-…

Venezuela under attack: 7 notes on electric shock (special report)
Misión Verdad | peoplesdispatch.org | 2019-03-11
Between the afternoon of March 8 and the early morning of March 10, Venezuela was the victim of a new sabotage attack, the biggest in its republican history, this time on the Guri hydroelectric plant, which left at least 80% of the population without electricity, with the aim of undermining any attempt by the Venezuelan government to stabilize the economy and curb the insurrectionary context the United States and its minions, like Juan Guaidó, are trying to bring to fruition in the country. | 1. Preparing for shock. Prior to the sabotage that shook the entire National Electric System, leaving much of the count…peoplesdispatch.org/2019/03/11/venezuela…

Landmine in Colombia Kills 5, Peace Talks Remain Elusive
teleSUR | telesurenglish.net | 2019-03-11
Three members of the military and two civilians have died after a group stepped on a landmine Saturday morning in the town of Tibu in the north of the department of Santander Colombia. | RELATED | Colombian President Seeks To Weaken Peace Accord Court | Sources in the military say that the group belonging to the Corps of Engineers was doing initial assessments of the area in preparation for upcoming road work when they stepped on a landmine. | Initial reports indicated that two milit…telesurenglish.net/news/Landmine-in-Colo…

NATO "Deserves the Nobel Peace Prize" and "Wars Make Us Safer"?
The Global Research Team | globalresearch.ca | 2019-03-11
In a world built of spin, our goal has always been to present you with the facts. | If we were to take mainstream news headlines at face value, we would have to believe the following: | . | . | . | . | A …globalresearch.ca/nato-deserves-the-nobe…

Trump Seeks Cuts to Human Needs to Fund Pentagon Hikes No One Needs
Paul Kawika Martin | peaceaction.org | 2019-03-11
Washington, D.C. — March 11, 2019 — In response to President Trump's budget request for FY 2020, Paul Kawika Martin, Senior Director for Policy and Political Affairs at Peace Action, released the following statement: "Fulfilling President Trump's request for $750 billion in Pentagon spending would be an obscene misallocation of resources that would fail to …peaceaction.org/2019/03/11/trump-seeks-c…

Dying to Make a Living: the Shame of Industrial Mortality
George Ochenski | counterpunch.org | 2019-03-11
Kudos to Montana's Democratic Senator Jon Tester who introduced a new bill to ban the use of asbestos in the United States last week. Tester joins eight other senators on the measure, which was simultaneously introduced in the House and co-sponsored by 21 representatives. Montana's tragic history with asbestos-caused death and injury in the Libby
In a new Grizzly Times podcast, Bob Jackson shares stories of his fascinating 30-year career as a backcountry ranger in Yellowstone Park. He was dubbed "A…counterpunch.org/2019/03/11/dying-to-mak…

Journalists, Lawyers & Activists Targeted in Sweeping U.S. Intelligence Gathering Effort on Border
Democracy Now! | democracynow.org | 2019-03-11
Newly revealed documents show the U.S. government created a secret database of activists and journalists who were documenting the Trump administration's efforts to thwart a caravan of migrants hoping to win asylum in the U.S. An investigation from San Diego's NBC 7 revealed the list was shared among Homeland Security Investigations, ICE, Customs and Border Protection and the FBI. It included the names of 10 journalists–seven of whom are U.S. citizens–along with nearly four dozen others listed as "organizers" or "instigators." House Democrats are now calling for the full disclosure of the government's…www.democracynow.org/2019/3/11/journalis…

Intl Women's Day in Philippines: Unite and fight Filipino women's #1 enemy, the U.S.-Duterte regime
Fight Back | fightbacknews.org | 2019-03-11
Fight Back News Service is circulating the following March 8 statement from MAKIBAKA (the Patriotic Movement of New Women), a revolutionary women's group in the Philippines. | On this historic day of women's collective actions becoming a worldwide force to be reckoned with, Filipino revolutionary women under the banner of Malayang Kilusan ng Bagong Kababaihan (MAKIBAKA) continue the fierce tradition of strong women resisting and fighting along the line and program of the national democratic revolution against the semi-colonial and semi-feudal system. As we celebrate the International Women's Day, we recognize and…www.fightbacknews.org/2019/3/10/intl-wom…

Syria Vows to "Attack Israel If It Does Not Leave the Golan Heights"
Tyler Durden | theantimedia.com | 2019-03-11
(ZH) — In a surprising and provocative ultimatum, Syria has notified Israel through United Nations diplomatic channels that it is prepared to go to war if Israel does not leave the Golan Heights. Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mikdad reportedly sent the message through the head of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO), Christine Lund, this past week, according …

'Zero chance' of slave reparations happening, despite current debate on the subject — analysts to RT
RT | rt.com | 2019-03-11
Democratic presidential candidate Julián Castro has said he won't rule out reparations to descendents of slaves, setting him apart from frontrunner Bernie Sanders — but is such a policy a real possibility or an empty promise? | …rt.com/usa/453557-reparations-slaves-dem…

Billboard Targets Kyrsten Sinema as Dem Senator Standing Against Net Neutrality
Jake Johnson | theantimedia.com | 2019-03-11
(CD) — When Senate Democrats unveiled legislation to fully restore net neutrality last week, every member of the party's caucus signed on to the bill–except one. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), the lone Democratic holdout, is now the target of a grassroots campaign by internet advocacy group Fight for the Future, which is crowdfunding a billboard that accuses her of "siding with …

Charting a Progressive Foreign Policy for the Trump Era and Beyond
Shared by Hezvo Mpunga | therealnews.com | 2019-03-10
As President Trump destabilizes America's role in the world, progressives have a unique opportunity to define a new foreign policy for America. But while the ascendant progressive movement in Congress has advanced a bold agenda on domestic policy, it needs to develop a cohesive and principled vision for the U.S. role in international affairs. A…therealnews.com/stories/charting-a-progr…

'I'm winning!' Trump attacks 'Wacky Nut Job' Ann Coulter for her border wall criticism
RT | rt.com | 2019-03-10
Claiming that he is "winning at the border," the US president has fired back at conservative firebrand Ann Coulter, who ended her cooling political romance with Donald Trump by calling him an "idiot" over concessions to Democrats. | …rt.com/usa/453442-trump-wacky-nut-job-co…